June 2015 Volume 33 Number 2

CARLETON-WILLARD VILLAGER JUNE 2015 ❀ VOLUME 33 ❁ Number 2 T HE C ARLE T ON -W ILLARD Co-Editors’ Corner VILLAGER Published quarterly by and for the residents and administration of Carleton-Willard Village, an ac- credited continuing care retirement community at What a winter! Maybe that’s not what the 100 Old Billerica Road, Bedford, Massachusetts 01730. Villager Board had in mind when they chose “Unforgettable” as our June theme but it cer- CO-EDITORS tainly describes the season we have just been Alice Morrish and Peggy McKibben through. “Snowiest winter in Boston’s recorded his- tory” according to the news reports. There is EDITORIAL BOARD still lots of white-stuff-turned-grey around as Mary Cowham • Edwin Cox we work toward submissions deadline in April, Henry Hoover • Stephanie Rolfe which accounts for “Winter Wondering” in our Anne Schmalz • Nancy Smith contents as well as memories of memorable Mary E. Welch • Cornelia (Neela) Zinsser events like weddings, hikes, travels in sunnier times of year. The first spring bulbs are bloom- PRODUCTION STAFF ing now. The old line “It takes living through a Kathy Copeland New England winter to truly appreciate a New England spring” has never been truer. Spring and summer are indeed welcome. CIRCULATION Several new authors appear in this issue Ruth Y. McDade, Chair and we also welcome two new members to the Janet Kennedy • Dot Rand Villager Board. Stephanie Rolfe and Nancy Smith Mary Waters Shepley • Sheila Veidenheimer have each contributed articles for recent issues and now they will join other Board members not CARLETON-WILLARD VILLAGE ADMINISTRATION only in writing but also in choosing issue themes and covers, in interviewing new residents for Barbara A. Doyle our “Profiles” section, serving on our rotating President/CEO proofing team and generally working to make the publication as interesting and enjoyable as possible. We thank all our Board colleagues for their work and for their congeniality. And we urge resident readers to become writers. Alice Morrish Peggy McKibben Co-Editors T h e C a r l e T o n -W i l l a r d V i l l a g e r • J u n e 2 0 1 5 • V o l u m e 3 3 • n u m b e r 2 2 Contents Cover – “Monhegan Summer” by Jeanne Paradise Sketches – by Anne Schmalz, Constance Devereux Inside Front Cover Co-Editor’s Corner • Alice Morrish, Peggy McKibben 2 From the Chief Executive Officer • Barbara A. Doyle 3 The Question of Time • Neela Zinsser 3 The Beckoning Fair One • Luis Fernandez-Herlihy 4 The Third Grade Wedding • Ruth McDade 5 The Unforgettable Ride • Anne Schmalz 6 Welcome New Residents 6 A Few Memories • Donna Argon 7 An Incongruous Hiking Group • Bob Sawyer 8 Profiles • (profiles are not made available in this edition) 10 Unforgettable • Ara Tyler 10 The Entanglement • Craig Hill 11 Whether or Not • Edith Gilmore 11 Spirits, Be Gone! • Mary O’Meara 12 Village Happenings • Edwin Cox 14 Sights, Sounds and Smells of My Childhood • Madelyn E. Armstrong 14 In Memory 15 Winter Wondering • Helen Kilbridge 16 Voulez Vous Parler Francais? Non! • Peggy McKibben 16 Night Recipe • Edith Gilmore 17 Surprised by Meghan • Myrtle Cox 17 SOLD to the Little Lady in Yellow • Alice Morrish 18 Camping at Cinnamon Bay • Nancy Smith 20 How to Build a Nest • Anne Schmalz 21 Facts from the Stacks • Katherine F. Graff 22 Among the Newest • Louis W. Pitt, Jr. 23 Recent Library Acquisitions • Katherine F. Graff T h e C a r l e T o n -W i l l a r d V i l l a g e r • J u n e 2 0 1 5 • V o l u m e 3 3 • n u m b e r 2 1 From the Chief Executive Officer “God gave us memories so that we might have roses in December.” J.M. Barrie (author of Peter Pan) Seeing, they say, is believing. In fact, we use over half of our cerebral cortex – the part of the brain needed for language, perception, thought and memory – to process visual information. And if scientists are correct, we are quickly retraining our brains to rely even more on our eyes (thanks, computers and iPhones) and less on our other senses. Yes, we are definitely visual beings. Not so with my dog, Maddie. Unlike people, Maddie and her furry pals rely mostly on their sense of smell. If you understood Maddie-talk (and I do rather fluently), she would tell you: the nose knows. I bring this up because winter – as we know well – was relentless. Long gone were the festive perfumes of bayberry candles, the comforting aromas of holiday baking. The air seemed to have disintegrated into a flat, oxygen-deprived, static-electric envelope of forced heat. Ah, for warm sunshine and a gentle breeze! Maddie’s nose, I’ve noticed, is pressed against the picture window glass and all a-twitch. She’s detected a curious scent, stealthily delivered thanks to a front door opened and closed with slightly less winter urgency. Outside, the birds and squirrels have caught on as well. Something is clearly afoot! Canine clairvoyance? Puppy precognition? More, I think, an instinctive understanding, the rekindling of memory. Everything is about to wake up. Hmm…I believe I’ll crack a window just a bit wider! Barbara A. Doyle President/CEO T h e C a r l e T o n -W i l l a r d V i l l a g e r • J u n e 2 0 1 5 • V o l u m e 3 3 • n u m b e r 2 2 The Question of Time we carry around and depend on. They are simply speeding us up, allowing us to speed through ime is something I have been wrestling with time faster, but not more wisely. If the machines Tfor a number of years. My concern with time are really going to benefit us, we need to put has increased as the years pass by, year by year, some limit to their use, by turning them off from always more quickly. What is time anyway? A time to time. That way we can simply enjoy our blessing, a curse, an enemy, a friend or none morning coffee without being alert for the next of the above? Whenever I hear the indifferent call or text! ticking of a clock it doesn’t soothe my fear of be- In the course of that workshop I realized ing late, or help me to do important chores “on there are many other ways in which we misuse time.” It doesn’t keep me from procrastinating our tools and degrade our time. For all our talk - an awkward habit that often causes me to wait, of “being in the present”, our culture pushes us postpone, and end up finishing a task with just to dwell on the past--memories, nostalgia, some- minutes to spare before some deadline or other. times regret--areas which we can’t do anything “Not having enough time” often enhances my about. Alternatively, we are urged to “look to the fear about doing a task adequately and height- future”, another task that is equally futile--as ens my anxiety that I really may not have done a we simply can’t do much about what will hap- very good job despite all that worry. At my age, pen when our great-grandchildren are adults, no a condition I share with so many of you, I often matter how concerned we may be. wonder if I will get everything done: all that sort- Perhaps, the most valuable lesson I learned ing, all that saving, or tossing away to be done at the workshop was that time is neither a bless- and limited time in which to do it. ing nor a curse, but it is inescapable! A very real I know that we have all encountered this problem for us is learning to refrain from berat- problem and maybe even more so as we grow ing ourselves on the nitty-gritty details of daily older. Almost every day, I seem to be bothered life when faced with the inevitable passage of by time -- or rather by the lack thereof. I re- time. On that philosophical note, I guess the best cently read about a time management workshop we can do is to enjoy the time we still have! and was quite proud of myself when I promptly Neela Zinsser signed up for it. But two weeks later, as I drove to the workshop, I worried about being late, find- ing a parking space and even that I might fall on The Beckoning Fair One the ice and break a limb. Nothing really delayed me, not even the extraneous worry, and I made it n 1932 Papá (my father) bought himself an Agfa ‘on time.’ I16mm silent motion picture camera. He had a The workshop opened me up to a couple of lot of fun with it, but he found the transition from ideas about time being both a friend and a prob- his Kodak still camera difficult. For instance, his lem. Accepting time is a reality, and the work- movies of people showed them standing still and shop leader made a connection between time and grinning at the camera. Rarely you might see them the earth’s environment. We live, breathe and removing their hats and waving them, or pointing move in these parallel realities, and as we hu- at something, but always rooted in place.

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